Oh, How i love jesus!

September 25, 2022 • Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Reading: Matthew 5:43-48 (The Inclusive Bible)
Rev. Jeff Wells preaching

[You can view the full worship video recording at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhRQw-qSRlo

Understanding who Jesus was and who Jesus is for us today is central to those who claim to follow him. Yet, there is no answer that all Christians agree on. Who is Jesus to you? Who is Jesus for our Church of the Village community? Those are questions I want us to consider today. 

While Jesus thought of himself as a devout Jew and knew the scriptures and the laws and rituals as well as anyone, he didn’t focus on teaching people what to believe. He centered his ministry on teaching people how to act in the world. And Jesus was a rebel. He was constantly re-imagining the meaning of the laws, rules, and wisdom that had been handed down to him. When he was criticized for healing on the sabbath or allowing his disciples to collect enough food for a meal on the sabbath, Jesus said the sabbath was made for humans, not the other way around. Another time, he encountered a woman about to be killed by a mob because the law demanded stoning anyone caught in adultery. He shamed the crowd into letting her live and then forgave her and sent her on her way. He ate with tax collectors and other sinners. He touched and healed people considered impure because they were differently abled, had a mental illness, or had a disease like leprosy.

In all of these cases, he was acting not out of allegiance to a set of rules, but out of a commitment to love. Jesus was all about love. He wasn’t talking about romantic love or friendship love. The love Jesus promoted was agape – the Greek word for the love of our fellow human beings. 

When an expert in religious law tried to test Jesus by asking, “Which is the greatest commandment?”, Jesus replied: 

“‘Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:34-40, NIV)

When he took his followers to Jerusalem to face off with the top religious leaders and with the power of the Roman Empire, he taught his disciples one last lesson: “Love one another the way I have loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.” (John 15:12-13, The Voice).  

Almost everything that Jesus taught can be found in some form in the Hebrew scriptures. The exception is this one little teaching in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5: “I tell you, love your enemies and pray for your persecutors. This will prove that you are children of God.” That’s a hard teaching and very challenging to put in to practice.

John Wesley, one of the founders of the movement to which this church belongs, wrote an essay in 1742 titled, “The Character of a Methodist.” The 18th century language is a bit hard to follow, so I will paraphrase what Wesley wrote about enemy love: 

Anyone who loves God must also love his neighbor – in fact all persons – as himself. That fact that the neighbor is a stranger, is no bar to his love. Nor does it matter that he disapproves of the neighbor’s beliefs, behavior, or that the neighbor repays his love with hatred. For he "loves his enemies." Yes, even the enemies of God, "the evil and the ungrateful." If he finds himself unable to "do good to those that hate him," yet he does not cease to pray for them, even though they continue to spurn his love, and still "despitefully use him and persecute him.” [1]

Sixty-five years ago, in November 1957 – the year I was born – Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a sermon in the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama where he was serving as the senior minister. That was just a year after the end of the Montgomery bus boycott, which achieved the integration of the public buses in that segregated city. The sermon was titled, “Loving Your Enemies.”

It is a powerful message and the clearest exposition of this teaching of Jesus I have ever seen. I encourage you to read it. The link is in the chat and will be published with the sermon manuscript on our website this week. 

Dr. King explains why hate only produces more hate. It will never get the world to where we need to be. The same is true with violence. He goes on to detail several ways to practice love for one’s enemies. I will share just one of them. King said: 

“Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it…. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative and understanding goodwill for all people…. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in those systems, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.” [2]

Jesus and John Wesley and Martin Luther King Jr. all understood that hatred and violence might earn a short-term victory, but they will never promote creative human transformation or increase good in the world. They also knew that you cannot defeat a more numerous and well-armed and resourced enemy with hatred and violence. Love is by far the more powerful tool.

Of course, this cannot be passive love, nor passive non-violence. Following Jesus, Dr. King preached love in action – the same kind Jesus showed in confronting the empire and its collaborators in the Jewish leadership. It was love in action that King and millions of others practiced in the Civil Rights Movement, the Poor People’s Movement, and the anti-Vietnam War movement. Jesus built his spirituality and his movement on undermining systems of oppression and exploitation through the power of enemy love. 

When I was a teenager, I did, for a time, believe the primary thing about Jesus was that he died on a cross to save me from my sins. That’s called atonement theology. But eventually, I came to recognize that as bad theology, bad religion, and so narrow and limiting for those who want to follow the Jesus of love and justice. Fortunately, in midlife, I discovered and fell in love with a very different Jesus. I realized there is a very different way of being church that is not focused on saving souls, but on saving and promoting fullness of life for all by transforming the world.  

The Jesus I came to know and love demonstrated his own great love by “giving his life for his friends” and us. He didn’t give his life because God demanded someone die to pay for our sins. He did it because he knew that only love could fulfill his mission. He said, “I came to bring good news to the poor, release to the prisoner, recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free” and he handed that same mission on to us. Jesus taught us to love. That’s the Jesus I choose to follow. That’s the anti-death penalty Jesus, the anti-slavery Jesus, the anti-imperialist Jesus, the anti-war Jesus, the anti-racist Jesus, the non-violent Jesus who called us to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors. Jesus is my hero, inspiration, teacher, leader, and mentor. Don’t take my word for it. Take time to reflect on who Jesus is for you. What does it require of you to follow Jesus as part of the Church of the Village? What does following Jesus ask of us in the world today?

Copyright © 2022 by Jeff Wells
All rights reserved.

[1] John Wesley, “The Character of a Methodist,” 1742, available online at: https://pages.uoregon.edu/sshoemak/323/texts/Wesley%20Character.htm

[2] Martin Luther King Jr., “Loving Your Enemies,” sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, 1957, available online at: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/loving-your-enemies-sermon-delivered-dexter-avenue-baptist-church

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